Graham Smith Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 To start off with, I'm not a big fan of Sketchup. I find that a number of the controls are very counter-intuitive for someone who is used to Windows 2D drawing programs. Never the less, I'm going to have another go this winter on learning this program. To start with, I need to create some custom bays. There are no two bays at our range that are the same size and some have irregular shapes as well. Is there any kind of a tutorial on how to create a properly scaled bay in Sketchup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sperman Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Graham, I feel the same way you do about sketchup, but recently bit the bullet and drew up bays for my home club (where I typically design and setup stages.) I found it much easier to start from scratch than to try and modify any existing models in existence. They never behaved the way I wanted them to. Once I started with a clean model things behaved better. I'll try and type up some instructions tonight. If you want to download the bays I made search for "Rowan County" in the sketchup model library. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted December 2, 2013 Author Share Posted December 2, 2013 I found it much easier to start from scratch than to try and modify any existing models in existence. They never behaved the way I wanted them to. Once I started with a clean model things behaved better. That's probably a good idea. Creating something from scratch often gives a better overall feel for things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bikerburgess Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 The best way I found to get the bay sizes correct is to use the "add location" function. this is the icon on the tool bar that looks like a folded map, click this button then zoom the map into your shooting range then click "select region" then finalize the area you want to get in the drawing then click "grab" now the base of your new model will be a picture of the bays at your club. at this point you have some options either do your stage layouts right on the picture of the bays, what I did is to the side of the picture in my model I created a large plain white bay that I use wen I export the 2d picture for use in the stage description that way the props stand out better on the back ground. to get the stage that was designed in one of the picture bays to the plain bay I just select all the props at once and move the whole stage at one time. if you want to see what I am talking about (sorry its a bit of a mess) go to the model warehouse and search "dundee uspsa" and you can download my model. Hope this helps Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted December 2, 2013 Author Share Posted December 2, 2013 The best way I found to get the bay sizes correct is to use the "add location" function... How do you get the scale correct? The scale of the props and the bays have to be the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bikerburgess Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 so far most of the props I have imported have been drawn to full scale and the picture of the range comes in at full scale so it all works together pretty well. if you want to add even more realism to everything you can actually hit another button and sketchup will add the elevation data to the picture and you can see the bays in 3d I don't think the resolution of the elevation data is enough to be realistic for laying out stages (the ones I have played with came in really rounded off) but it is kinda neat to play with and if I was going to do a Major Match I may set everything up in the full 3d environment for a match fly through video. PS I agree that the user interface in sketchup is not great, but for the price it 's hard to beat. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted December 2, 2013 Author Share Posted December 2, 2013 so far most of the props I have imported have been drawn to full scale and the picture of the range comes in at full scale so it all works together pretty well. So 1 inch = X yards consistently in both the props and in the bays? That's handy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bikerburgess Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Not quite 1"=1" in both, all the dimensions are full size no conversions are nessesary Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sperman Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Not quite 1"=1" in both, all the dimensions are full size no conversions are nessesary Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk same here. 1:1 scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjohn Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 How did everyone learn how to use Sketchup? I would like to become familiar with the program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Too_Slow Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I did it by trial and error. It ended up working fairly well. I have put stages into it for several people and several matches. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sperman Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 Same here. The first few times I used it I was extremely frustrated. One day I decided I was going to learn how to use it no matter what, and it wasn't that bad. It's still a frustrating program for someone who is used to professional CAD software, but for the price its a pretty darn good program. I won't have time to write anything up this evening, but a couple of quick suggestions. 1) when drawing a line, once you have the line headed along the proper axis, you can type in a number for the length. (Pay attention to your units. Most likely it is reading the number as inches, so a 30 yard wide bay would be 1080 inches.) 2) the ruler tool is very useful. It will layout tick marks that you can then use as reference points when doing other operations. I layed out the ruler with marks every 5 yards for the grid on the floor of my bay. I could then use those 5 yard tic marks for laying out lines to create the floor. I found that a quick google search would answer almost any question I had about using sketchup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted December 3, 2013 Author Share Posted December 3, 2013 The couple times I have used 3D drawing programs, you did all your work in 2D plan view (overhead) then switched to 3D to view. I think that's one of the things that's thrown me off with Sketchup in the past - it just behaves differently than I am used to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sperman Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 That is very similar to how I created the bays. I drew the shape of the berm on the XY plane. When your lines close, it automatically fills in the shape. I then used the drag tool to take this 2d shape and "extrude" it into one of the berms. Then I made 2 copies and drug them into place for the other 2 sides of the bay. FWIW almost all modern CAD software works in 3d solids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 I drew the shape of the berm on the XY plane. I think that's one of the things I don't fully grasp. Outside of esthetics, why do you need berms at all? Why not just a flat grid surface to work on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sperman Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 For me, it's easier to have the visual reference of the berm, but it certainly isn't necessary. There are other features built into the range that I wanted to include (built in target stands, plate racks, shelter, etc.) but that is just my personal preference. If just having the grid works for you, go with it. I found a tutorial that showed me how to draw the grid for the floor using the ruler tool. There are also a bunch of grid plugins available for sketchup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bikerburgess Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 I normally do my layout on the flat picture of the bays then move it to a all white bay with white berms so when I make my 2d picture for the stage description the props are easy to see and the berms block the view of the rest of the props in the model. (my model is normally a pretty big mess of props and old stages that I grab from and re-arrange to make new stages, I wish I was more organized but I'm not) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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